Major League Baseball

Texas dad: Not 'as bad as it looked'

Published Apr. 27, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

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The father of a little boy who broke down at a Texas Rangers game after not getting a foul ball said the couple who got the souvenir has been unfairly demonized.

Kyle Shores' three-year-old son, Cameron, had his heart set on the ball tossed to the crowd by Rangers first basemen Mitch Moreland during Wednesday's game against the Yankees.

When Sean Leonard, who was sitting nearby with his fiancee, Shannon Moore, ended up with the ball, Cameron's waterworks began. That caught the attention of Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, who lambasted the couple on air.

Shores told FOXNews.com the couple didn't realize what was happening until after the Rangers gave the boy a ball later in the game.

"They were very nice," Shores said. "After Cameron got a ball, they pieced it all together. I think they really were oblivious to what was going on. And I don't think the announcer saw that part. It wasn't as bad as it looked."

After the boy got a ball, Kay still called the couple "greedy" and "tone deaf" for not giving up the first one.

Leonard has called on Kay to apologize for insinuating he and Moore were insensitive.

"He took an event and sensationalized it, threw it out there, never checked or validated the facts," Leonard told WFAA-TV.

Leonard, who works as the deputy director of finance for the town of Southlake, Texas, said it was the first game he and Moore had attended. The couple, who have a total of seven children, are getting married Saturday and have been getting constant phone calls over the incident.

"The irony of the situation is, had we seen that he was upset and known for an instant, there's not a person that knows us that wouldn't agree that we would have given the ball to the child," Leonard told the station.

Kay, meanwhile, will address the matter during his ESPN Radio show Friday afternoon.

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